


Shepherds Quake

by Frostfire



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-01
Updated: 2009-02-01
Packaged: 2018-10-04 15:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10282013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frostfire/pseuds/Frostfire
Summary: Chuck isn't used to being afraid of Sarah.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Episode tag for "Chuck versus Santa Claus."

“Hi, Casey,” says Chuck.  


Casey frowns at him. “Bartowski.”  


Casey, Chuck thinks, knows that something’s up. Hopefully he just thinks something’s up with Chuck and Sarah. Because, to be honest, something is usually up with Chuck and Sarah, and Casey really obviously doesn’t want anything to do with any of it. Chuck can be a little weird about it and coast under the radar for a while. There have been _weeks_ where he’s avoided her, sometimes, and Casey just rolled his eyes and ignored them.  


It’s not even a wrong conclusion. It’s just a different kind of something, a little further up. And Casey has no reason to suspect anything as long as Chuck doesn’t do anything unusual—but the only reason Chuck doesn’t want him to suspect anything is because he’s already doing something unusual—  


Being professionally paranoid is like thinking your way through a Moebius strip. Chuck can find it fun, sometimes, but he thinks the key to that is the word _professionally_. If he could go in to an office and try to thread his brain through plots and counterplots and counter-counterplots, and then take a break for lunch, and then do it some more and then go home, he might like it. Doing it every minute of every day, with people he actually _cares_ about, is part of what makes being the Intersect a freakishly hell-ridden…not-job. State of being. Thing.  


And it’s not like he’s _alone_. He knows that Sarah runs through eighty-seven possible results and weighs them pro-versus-con before she sits down at the breakfast table, let alone before she says _sure, let’s go on a real date_. And even when she gives into impulsiveness, kisses him while they wait for the bomb to explode, whatever—those eighty-seven possibilities are still there, oh yes they are, and she will eighty-seventh-guess herself until the end of _time_. Because she’s been doing this job, conservative estimate, _since she was born_.  


Or, well, maybe her dad waited until she’d gotten over the wrinkly red gross stage, so she’d be cute enough to take suckers in.  


Probably not, though.  


And part of him doesn’t give a fuck what Casey knows—part of him just wants to stick as close to Casey as possible. Because Casey doesn’t second-guess. Casey is _solid_ , Casey is _reliable_ , Casey is not going to mess with Chuck’s head, say one thing and do another—  


Well, okay. Casey would totally say one thing and do another. If he had orders to.  


Maybe Sarah had secret orders to shoot that guy. Maybe _take me in, I’m ready to go_ was actually secret code for _I have a deadly weapon and I’m about to use it_.  


Except Chuck has learned a little bit about Sarah, in the last year and a half, and he saw her make the decision, and she wouldn’t have looked like that if she were responding to a threat—if she wasn’t weighing all eighty-seven possibilities, and taking one she didn’t like. She shot him in cold blood, hands open and behind his head, and Chuck has no idea why, and he just—  


“Heading over to the DVDs?” Chuck says to Casey. “What a coincidence. I have—DVD-related things to do, myself.”  


Casey’s still limping a little, when he isn’t paying attention. He’s also still giving Chuck real glares instead of the usual _why-are-you-my-life_ disgusted glances. So it probably isn’t the best time for Chuck to be cozying up to him, but.  


He knows better than to ever, ever say this out loud, but Casey makes him feel safe. And he could use some safe right now.  


“What’s up, Bartowski?” Casey snaps.  


“Up?” Chuck asks. “Well, uh—not the stock market, that’s for sure.” He tries for a hearty chuckle, and it doesn’t really work. “I—that way!” He point toward the ceiling. “I think you will find, on closer investigation, that that is the direction of—” Wow, that’s a _really_ poisonous glare. “Nothing. Nothing is up. I just—I have a feeling.”  


Casey frowns. “What sort of a feeling?”  


“A—nervous feeling. Probably nothing, you know, who believes all that mumbo-jumbo anyway,” _hallelujah_ , Emmett is coming over to fuss about something. Chuck turns so that they’re both trapped.  


There follows ten minutes of nodding and smiling, with Casey standing a foot away and not about to go anywhere. It’s the best Chuck’s felt all day.  


And it’s not like he thinks Sarah’s going to come busting through the door and shoot _him_ , or anything. Or even come busting through the door and start shooting people who look like they’re a threat to him, which at least fits the evidence a little better. He just—  


She killed the guy, and she lied to him about it. How many other times has she done that?  


Sarah never promised to tell him everything about her. She’s pretty much promised the exact opposite, actually. He knows she’s done things he’ll never be told.  


He edges a little closer to Casey.  


Casey doesn’t have the cleanest hands in the world, either, but Casey—if there’s one thing Casey is _not_ , it’s confused. Casey would have shot the guy if it was necessary and right, and he would not have shot that guy if it was not necessary and right, and that’s all she wrote for Casey.  


Casey wouldn’t do something he knew was wrong. Sarah—  


He saw her. She did.  


  


 

 

He sticks close to Casey all day, which predictably drives Casey a little crazy—and it’s stupid, because it’s  
Casey’s _job_ to keep an eye on him, and if terrorists aren’t about to burst through the windows and kill everyone in the store (which has so far only happened in Chuck’s nightmares) then Casey can probably manage it without Chuck’s help.  


He does it anyway.  


 

 

Sarah comes over on her lunch break, as usual, and when Chuck catches the creamsicle outfit coming across the parking lot, he turns to Casey in suppressed panic and says, “Hey, you must be hungry. Sarah and I are getting lunch, why don’t you come.”  


Casey’s eyebrows twitch downward. By now, Chuck is good enough at interpreting Casey’s expressions to know that this means Casey is confused bordering on angry. (Though to be fair, being confused _makes_ Casey angry, so that’s not much of an interpretive stretch.)  


“I don’t go with you on your little lunch dates, Bartowski,” Casey pronounces slowly. “It doesn’t fit with your cover as a couple.”  


“I know,” says Chuck, “but—why can’t we shake things up once in a while? What’s wrong with a—” _threesome_ , he almost says, and thank _God_ for once his brain is in charge of his mouth—“little variety? Three friends having lunch, is that so weird?” And now he has visions of threesomes with Sarah and Casey running through his head—mostly scary, a little hot, and way too distracting for this moment in time.  


Casey’s eyes are narrowed. “What is wrong with you today? You’re twitchier than usual.” They narrow further.  
“How many Red Bulls did you have with breakfast?”  


“ _None_ , as I’m sure your spy equipment told you already,” Chuck snaps back, breaking his self-imposed rule to not think about the surveillance unless he has to. (If he thought about it too hard, he would never even be able to open the bathroom door. Self-preservation requires some healthy level of repression.)  


“Did you flash on something?” Casey’s looking at him more intently now.  


“No!” says Chuck, and when the intent look doesn’t go away, “No, I did not flash on anything. Nothing even close to flashes since last week.” Chuck is never so grateful for being a shitty liar than when he really needs to convince someone that the truth is the truth; if Casey thinks this is work-related, he won’t let up until he figures out what’s going on.  


“Then what—” Casey starts, but _the fuck is wrong with you_ is cut off by Sarah arriving.  


“Hi, Chuck!” she calls from the entrance, and Chuck only manages a sotto voce “ _Please_ ” before he has to turn and say hi.  


They hug, and Chuck says, “So, Casey’s on break right now too, and he’s going to come with us, if that’s okay.”  


“Sure,” says Sarah, smiling like they’re really just three friends going out for lunch.  


Casey says, “ _Hm_ ,”which Chuck’s attuned ear interprets as suspicious-with-a-hint-of-concern, which is sort of nice. “Fine. I’ll go clock out. No Mexican.”  


“What about Chinese, is Chinese okay?” Chuck calls after him, taking a few steps to follow.  


Casey says, “Fine,” leaving Chuck with no excuse, so he stands and watches Morgan try to finish building a scale replica of Helm’s Deep with variously-sized electronics boxes before Emmett notices.  


“Is something wrong?” Sarah asks under her breath, still smiling. “Did you flash on something?”  


Sometimes…he hates his life. “No,” he sighs. “Nothing’s wrong.” It’s not a lie—it shouldn’t be a lie. Sarah was just doing her job, probably. He was a bad guy, a really bad guy.

 

Chuck just keeps seeing the guy’s hands, is all, empty and loose behind his head.  


 

 

Lunch is a little awkward, but it’s a normal kind of awkward, the awkward of three people who don’t really have a lot in common other than work. Chuck tries to repress his unease just like he does the surveillance cameras, and tells a story about Trevor Johnson, who lived next door to Chuck his sophomore year at Stanford and grew bonsai.  


(The bonsai was a touchy subject with Casey, for a while, but last time he was in the apartment, Chuck saw a tiny little pot in one corner, so hopefully he’s over it. Which is good, because the man has a masterful touch with his little scissors.)  


The talking keeps him from having to think too hard. Sarah’s laugh doesn’t thrill him like usual, but she’s interested, and Casey even loosens up enough to ask a question about Trevor’s bonsai. A sarcastic question, but still. It’s not too bad of a lunch.  


When they get back to the Buy More, Morgan’s managed to build himself into Helm’s Deep, and Emmett is simultaneously shrieking at him and trying to figure out how to unbuild it without risking breaking anything valuable. Chuck breathes out, leans toward Casey a little, and the snapshot of Sarah’s face as she brought up her gun fades into the background.  


 

He follows Casey home.  


“Okay,” says Casey, when Chuck stops with him at his front door, “ _What is wrong with you_?”  


Which is fair. Chuck thinks he’s only latched on to Casey like this when he was under the influence of something. “I just—” he starts, and runs out of inspiration. “Can I come in?” he says finally, trying to look helpless—not really a stretch.  


Casey frowns at him for a long second, but finally just opens the door and lets Chuck follow him in.  


Casey points to the couch, where Chuck sits, and then goes off to do whatever Casey-things he does after getting home. Ordinarily Chuck might be wild with curiosity, but he’s tired, and happy to just tip his head back onto the couch.  


It’s possible he drifts off to the sound of muted clattering around, because it only seems like a minute before Casey’s coming in and handing him a plate of food.  


“Thanks,” Chuck says, surprised.  


“Get any on my couch and you won’t live to see morning,” Casey says, and Chuck waves his fork in acknowledgement and starts eating. It’s good.  


The silence while they’re eating is surprisingly not-awkward, but a ways in, Chuck breaks it anyway. “So,” he says. “I have this friend.”  


Casey glances up. “If this is about Grimes—”  


“No, no,” says Chuck. “Don’t worry.” He gets a mild-to-medium glare for associating Casey with _worry_ , which he shrugs off without a problem, and continues, “I have this friend, and he’s dating this girl. And, well—she did something that, um, that _he_ thinks is just, like, totally and completely wrong.”  


Casey’s giving him the _you idiot, Bartowski_ look, and he says, “Who’s the friend?”  


“Nobody,” says Chuck, and then quickly, “you don’t know him.”  


“Bartowski,” says Casey, “we know all your friends. We watch you all day and we monitor all your communication. So what did Walker do?”  


He twitches even though he saw it coming, almost starts the stumbling denial even though he knows it won’t work. He bites it back at the last second and finally says, “I don’t want to talk about it.”  


Because if she wasn’t supposed to, she could get in trouble, and if she was supposed to, he isn’t sure he wants to know.  


“Looks like you want to talk about it to me,” says Casey, dry but only sounding a little annoyed. He leans forward and puts his plate down. “So to spare _myself_ , I’m going to say: sometimes in this job, we have to make the hard decisions. Sometimes there’s no right option. Sometimes the bad call is better than the worst call. Good agents make the best out of the situation and don’t let it bother them afterward, because there’s nothing else we can do. Okay?”  


Chuck admires Casey’s biting sarcasm even if he doesn’t appreciate it, but he always admires these very occasional serious moments more. “Okay,” he says.  


Casey holds out a hand for his plate, and Chuck hands it over. Casey takes it and vanishes into the kitchen.  


He’s right, of course, and Chuck _knows_ he’s right, Chuck has been in those situations where none of the choices are right and not-choosing is impossible.  


He wonders if Sarah was fine afterward, if she put her gun away that night knowing she couldn’t have done anything else (Chuck hopes to God she couldn’t have done anything else) or if she’s been dreaming about those open hands, too.  


He gets up and goes to the kitchen doorway, where Casey’s standing at the sink.  


“I think I get it,” he says, and Casey doesn’t look at him, but Chuck can see the acknowledgement in the tilt of his head, the muscles of his shoulders.  


He thinks he gets it. But. “Can I stick around for a little while?” he asks anyway. Because the curling tension in his stomach isn’t just going to disappear. He knows from long experience.  


This gets Casey to turn and look at him. Chuck doesn’t know what the tilt of his own head, the muscles of his own shoulders, are telling Casey, but Casey finally says, “Fine.” He steps back from the sink. “You can do some of these dishes.”  


Chuck lets out a breath and steps up to the sink. “Thanks.”  


“Don’t thank me,” says Casey, and Chuck shrugs. Casey means it, but Chuck is grateful anyway.


End file.
